Late 1950s. I have just turned eight. My mother wrote out a short grocery list, packed my baby brother into the stroller and sent us to the store. 

“Breathe in deeply! And DO NOT dilly-dally,” she said as we headed down the driveway.

The stroller faced forward, so I couldn’t see Bobby’s face. He was less than a year old—no recognizable vocabulary, but we had a call and response, based on his passion for Popeye.

I would sing, “I’m Popeye the Sailorman!”

And he would answer in a high-pitched voice, “Boop-boop!”—mimicking the sound of Popeye blowing little puffs of cartoon smoke from his pipe. We walked down Warren Road, me singing, him boop-booping all the way. 

King’s grocery store was about a half mile away, in the Auburn Plaza, a small strip mall, consisting of a cluster of shops—W. T. Grants, Plaza Pizza, Angie’s Nail Salon and Friendly’s Ice Cream. We had to cross Route 12, a four-lane highway with no crosswalks. Wait… Wait… When the coast looked clear enough we would dash across. Bobby loved to go fast and squealed with delight. I was just relieved we made it. 

In the grocery store, people stopped to coo about how cute Bobby was and laughed out loud at his boop-booping as we searched for everything on the list. If they had arranged the store by colors, we could have found everything in the White Aisle: Wonder Bread, Marshmallow Fluff, mayonnaise, powdered milk, and, slightly off-white, Bisquick.

I balanced the items in Bobby’s lap until we paid, then I stuffed everything except the bread, which didn’t fit, into the pocket on the back of the stroller. Bobby held onto the soft loaf as we hurried into Grants, and headed straight to the back of the store, past Housewares, and Ladies Lingerie, to the Pet Department. Bobby loved the geckoes and mini turtles. We watched the fish for several minutes. They seemed happy to swim back and forth, but the birds were cramped in small cages and could only hop from one perch to the other. This upset me. 

Eventually I remembered the “DO NOT Dilly-dally” warning. We had to leave. Bobby wanted to stay, and started to wail. “Do you want a num-num?” It was a ruse. I knew the candy counter was up front, near the exit, and num-num was the magic word. Bobby calmed down, but just before we left, I opened the little wire birdcage doors—and then we dashed up the aisle to escape before anyone noticed.   

A saleslady with blue hair in the lingerie department was dressing truncated manikins with the latest model bras. She yelled at me to stop running.  

“What’s your name?” she demanded. 

“Linda.” 

“Linda what?” 

My mind went blank. I was willing to commit the venial sin of making up a name, but I couldn’t think of one. I looked around for a word, any word, and was distracted momentarily by the naked breasts on the manikin she was dressing. No nipples, but still the closest thing I had ever seen to real breasts. She fumbled to cover them. Finally I spied a sign hanging over the underwear counter. 

“Waistband,” I blurted out. 

“Well, Miss Waistband,” she hissed. “You just wait here until I find the manager.” 

I was in trouble. 

At that minute, a bird flew by. The saleslady gasped, covered her head and ran toward the dressing room, Tippy Hedren style.

I ran in the opposite direction, towards the candy counter and quickly grabbed a green sourball and gave it to Bobby. We rushed through the register to pay for it, I pushed the stroller out the door, bumped over the metal threshold, and dashed into the parking lot. 

“That was close,” I exhaled. 

As we headed for Warren Road, I checked in with Bobby, “I’m Popeye the Sailor man!”  No answer. I tried again, “I’m Popeye the Sailor man!” Silence. I walked around to face Bobby. 

He was blue. 

I grabbed him out of the stroller in a panic and raced back into Grants, screaming, “Help! My brother is choking!” Several salespeople came running, and they started slapping him on his back. “What did he eat? Should we call an ambulance?”  

I sobbed. “Please don’t let him die.”

The next few seconds seemed like an hour. “Please, please,” I whimpered, lowering my head to hide my fear. Just then, through my tears, I spotted a blurry green blob stuck in my hair… 

Apparently I had sort of Heimliched Bobby when I grabbed him out of the stroller…   

While all the attention was on the poor kid, I secretly slipped the sticky sourball into my mouth and with utter relief announced, “I think he’s ok now.” 

When it was clear that Bobby was breathing ok, I heard someone from the back of the store, “A canary is loose!” I turned scarlet with guilt, but tried to be nonchalant as I carried Bobby outside. The Wonder Bread was on the ground next to the abandoned stroller. I must have stepped on it in my panic. I did my best to revive it, but mostly I was just so relieved that Bobby was ok…

“What happened to the bread?” my mother demanded. “How on earth can I spread Fluff on this?”

I trusted my gut that it was not the best moment to tell her that I nearly killed her baby.

Fade in. Fade out.

Bobby graduated from high school and started college, but it was not a good fit at that time, so he decided to become Popeye, and enlist in the Navy. I was against his decision– I knew no amount of spinach would help him on a battleship in the Middle East, a tinderbox, ready to explode at any minute. I tried to reason with him, but it was a done deal—He had already signed the paperwork.

My family planned a going away dinner—we would each bring a gift and tell a Bobby story. At first I refused to be included, but eventually caved.  “Don’t let them wreck you,” was all I said as I handed him my present, rolled up in a tube. It was a six-foot pin up drawing of Olive Oyl, complete with cheap makeup, fishnet stockings and removable pasties covering her little cartoon nipples.

And, for the first time, I told the story about the green sourball. 

Bobby brought the drawing onto his ship and hung it inside his locker, while his shipmates hung full color Playboy centerfolds in theirs. One day, after a surprise inspection, he was demoted for having Olive there. But he told me it was worth getting busted, because until he was forced to remove her, every time he opened his locker, the tassels on her pasties jiggled. Boop-boop!